The Gloaming: Between Worlds

Central London’s largest nightclub, Heaven, will be home to an atmospheric programme of music for choir and cello this Halloween, performed by The Fourth Choir, London’s critically-acclaimed LGBTQ+ classical chamber choir, and leading cello soloist Katherine Jenkinson.

The Gloaming: Between Worlds, conducted by Jamie Powe, promises to be an evocative audience experience through works for a cappella choir and cello drawing on many facets of the Autumn festival. Sacred and profane, eerie and elemental, liminal and transporting—and featuring works from the medieval era to contemporary masterpieces.

A cappella choral works include the primal Air and Fire from Canadian composer Katerina Gimon’s Elements series as well as a trio of ghostly folk-influenced numbers from British composers working around the turn of the 20th century: Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Coleridge-Taylor. The first half of the concert concludes with Irish contemporary composer Rhona Clarke’s setting of a macabre and chilling nursery rhyme.

In the second half of the concert, the mood changes from pagan Halloween to sacred All Hallow’s Eve, the Eve of All Saints Day, and from ethereality to spirituality.

The main work of this half will be the UK première of celebrated Polish composer Paweł Łukaszewski’s dramatic and otherworldly Seven Last Words of Christ, an extended work for double choir and cello.

The concert makes further use of the charged pairing of voice and cello with John Taverner’s ethereal Svyati, drawing on call and response between choir and instrument from Russian Orthodox funereal tradition, and, closer to home, Alexander Campkin’s The Ghost of Shadwell Stair. Campkin’s piece was premièred by the Choir in 2017 and sets a text by the war poet Wilfred Owen that was never published in his lifetime as it evokes the queer nightlife of early 20th century London “haunting” the wharves, shores and arches by the Thames: a fitting subject matter for Heaven’s industrial brick arches.

The iconically ominous Dies Irae from the Requiem mass, which has served as inspiration for dozens of horror movie soundtracks such as The Shining, will also be woven throughout the evening.

The Fourth Choir

The Fourth Choir is a chamber choir established in 2013 with the aim of representing the LGBTQ+ community on London’s classical music scene. Since then, the Choir has performed at many of London’s iconic cultural venues, including the Wigmore Hall, King’s Place, the British Museum, Wilton’s Music Hall, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, and the Royal Festival Hall. This is the choir’s second performance at Heaven after a concert marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in 2019. Last year included many important firsts for the Choir including their solo debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, their first live broadcast on Radio 3 as part of the In Tune Christmas special and the release of their first album Songs of Ourselves. The album which showcases works by underrepresented composers received enthusiastic reviews in Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine and, appropriately for the Fourth Choir, entered the classical charts at number four.

Jamie Powe

Alongside The Fourth Choir, Jamie is currently Musical Director of The New London Singers, Putney Choral Society and The Aubrey Singers. He was Director of The Arcadian Singers 2019–23, the Chapel Choir of Regent’s Park College, Oxford 2019–2021, and was also Associate Director of Ware Choral Society 2022–23. He studied music at Somerville College, Oxford, before being awarded a scholarship to study choral conducting at the Royal Academy of Music; he graduated with distinction in his MA, and was also awarded the Thomas Armstrong prize for outstanding choral leadership. Jamie is also a composer and arranger, published with Stainer & Bell.

Katherine Jenkinson

Praised for her 'technical security backed up by rare musical sensitivity' by The Independent, Katherine is widely recognised as one of the UK's leading cellists specialising in solo and chamber music. In contemporary music, Katherine has worked closely with composers Arvo Pärt, Oliver Davis, Anthony Payne, Richard Allain and Thomas Hyde. In 2018 Oliver Davis invited Katherine to record his Cello Concerto Morpheus with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, an album which subsequently became a Classic FM and Classical iTunes No.1 hit. Chamber music is a key part of Katherine's musical life. She was a member of the Allegri Quartet (2008-2011) and is a founder member of the Aquinas Piano Trio, performing with them in the UK and abroad. Katherine has appeared as Guest Principal with a number of UK orchestras including RPO, RPCO, City of London Sinfonia, London Chamber Orchestra, Oxford Philharmonic and London Concert Orchestra.